


Howling ghosts they reappear

by holtzmannsgilbert



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: But there's still fluff, F/F, not as fluffy as my last fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7832659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holtzmannsgilbert/pseuds/holtzmannsgilbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jillian Holtzmann was everything that Erin admired and feared. She was confident and unwavering in her uniqueness; equally as wacky as she was intelligent, casting little to no though about what others thought of her."</p>
<p>A little character study on Erin Gilbert, up until she and Holtz get together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howling ghosts they reappear

**Author's Note:**

> This runs alongside my other Ghostbusters fic, entitled 'Home'. You don't have to read that before this, but there are bits in there that are eluded to in this fic but not detailed. Hope you enjoy!

Erin Gilbert saw her first ghost when she was seven years old. It was mid-August and everyone kept saying that it was one of the hottest summers they remembered, although Erin was sure that she heard that every year. Mrs. Lane had died fifteen days prior, which was something that Erin had asked a lot of questions about (she just couldn’t accept the fact that nobody knew what happened after death), although it really seemed as though nobody had the answers she was looking for. All she kept hearing was that Mrs. Lane had “gone to a better place now”, but it made no sense. Erin simply wanted to know a bit more about the whole situation. It would be a lie to say that she was upset about the old woman’s death, but she felt something nonetheless, even if she couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. Erin had never known anybody who had died. She had been dragged to the funeral by her parents who insisted that it was the polite thing to do and had fidgeted as she listened to other old people talk about what a nice person she was (although Mrs. Lane wasn’t a nice person as far as the young girl knew - she had shouted at Erin every time she tried to pet her cat and had just been downright mean). She also learned that her first name was Mary, which Erin decided to ignore because such a soft name didn’t suit the pinched, strict woman.

The first night she saw the old woman again was particularly hot and Erin had had difficulty getting to sleep, tossing and turning until she finally became exhausted by the constant movement. An odd chill woke her up in the middle of the night and Erin woke up, sitting up to go and close her window. As she sat up though, her eyes settled on a pale figure standing at the end of her bed. Something that wasn’t transparent but wasn’t solid either. It wasn’t until her eyes adjusted that she noticed the large nose and wrinkled skin of Mrs. Lane, just hovering at the end of her bed, sunken eyes boring into her. Every fibre of her being knew that something was wrong, that she should probably fetch her father, but Erin couldn’t move. She just found herself staring. Of course she had heard about ghosts before, but she had never really believed in them. Her parents were involved in the sciences and had made it clear that any mention of the paranormal was not allowed in their house. They wouldn’t even let her dress up as a ghost for Halloween. Erin stared at the woman at the end of her bed until she couldn’t anymore, when her eyes closed against her will and she fell asleep.

She was woken up early the next morning for school and immediately went to stand at the foot of her bed where she had seen the woman. “Mom?” she asked, looking up at the woman with wide eyes. “I saw Mrs. Lane last night.”

Karen Gilbert frowned. “You had a dream?” It was the only thing she could think of, but she really couldn’t understand why Erin would still be dreaming about the old woman.

“No, I actually saw her. She was standing right here at the end of my bed. For ages,” Erin replied, furrowing her eyebrows. “I think she’s turned into a ghost.”

“Erin, you know there’s no such thing as ghosts,” her mother insisted, giving her a pile of clothes to change into. “Now hurry up please. You know your father and I need to get to work.”

Erin took the clothes and changed herself, unable to shake the image of the old woman. Somehow in death she was even more terrifying than she had been in life, and she hadn’t even said anything the previous night.

\- - - 

Mrs. Lane continued to appear at the foot of her bed every night and Erin kept trying to tell her parents. They were patient with her to begin with, until Erin asked her father to set up a camera in her room one night.

“I’ll be able to prove it to you then,” she told the tall man, gripping onto his shirt tightly. “You’ll know I’m not lying.”

Her father pulled his shirt out of her small hand and knelt down to her level, hands on her shoulders. “Erin, that is enough.” He used his ‘don’t you dare answer back to me’ tone and Erin shrunk away. She hated making her parents angry. “There is no such thing as ghosts. I don’t know why you’re lying, but it has to stop.”

He then stood up and marched out of her room, closing the door behind him. Erin scrunched up her face and fought back tears, moving to her door and listening to her father and mother talk in low voices. She didn’t hear much, but she did catch the odd word, like “delusional”, “attention-seeking” and “therapy if she doesn’t stop”. The tears did fall then and when Erin saw Mrs. Lane that night, she just hid underneath her covers, trying her very hardest to forget about the fact that there was a ghost inside her room. Because maybe it wasn’t real and somehow her mind was just making it up.

The kids at school were no better. Erin had told her best friend about Mrs. Lane and somehow everyone found out. She walked down hallways with calls of “hey, ghost girl, seen anything spooky lately?” following her wherever she went. When the people she had called her friends started calling her a freak and joining in with the others, Erin began eating her lunch alone in the toilets and stopped playing with her old friends.

She started therapy not long after. Forced to sit in a room and be asked about why she liked to lie. And as much as Erin tried to tell the old man that she wasn’t lying, he wouldn’t believe her. She was further isolated in school when they somehow found out she was seeing a therapist and even her teachers didn’t seem as impressed with the work she was handing in, although Erin knew that it was no worse than the work she usually did. And seven year old Erin started to think that maybe she was a freak. Because if the adults around her didn’t think she was good enough, then who else was there?

\- - - 

Mrs. Lane stopped appearing after a year, but by that point the damage had been done. Erin continued seeing the therapist, continued spending her school days alone and continued to notice the fact that her parents had distanced themselves from her. The word ‘ghost’ had been banned in their house and they hadn’t even spoken to the school when Erin told them she was being bullied. 

“That’s just what kids do,” her father had told her. “You just need to be more like them, then they might like you.”

And so Erin’s need to be liked was born. She became desperate for approval from anyone she met. She doubled the effort she put into her work to impress her teachers, stopped talking about ghosts to impress her parents and tried to find out more about the things her classmates liked (apparently her interest in science wasn’t something that the other kids wanted to discuss). It worked with her teachers, but her parents remained rather uninterested and her classmates still called her ‘ghost girl’.

\- - - 

Erin’s parents moved when she was in high school, so she moved as well. Her therapy had ended when she was ten years old but she had never quite regained a stable relationship with either of her parents. And despite her interest in the paranormal, she had forbidden herself from researching it at all in fear that her parents might somehow find out. Her love for physics, though, was something that her parents had been very pleased about, so Erin had thrown every ounce of herself into it.

Moving schools, as anxious as it made her, was a relief. There was nobody there who knew her as ‘ghost girl’ and she could just keep her head down and focus on her work. She met her first friend after a week or so of being there and Abigail Yates stayed by her side throughout her whole stay at the school. Somehow Erin had managed to find the only other person who had an exceptionally keen interest in the paranormal and with Abby’s encouragement, Erin got involved in the whole ordeal with her. She told her about Mrs. Lane and her parents (and ignored Abby’s muttered “those bastards” when she told her about the disbelief and the therapy) and they spent most evenings at Abby’s house, scouring ghost websites and watching crappy documentaries, with Abby loudly disputing almost everything they said and Erin reminding her that they couldn’t actually hear her.

\- - - 

They both graduated high school and got accepted into the same college, with Erin studying particle physics. The two of them continued their research into the paranormal alongside their degrees, using the resources at the college to fuel everything they came up with. Throughout their years there, Abby and Erin remained best friends and wrote all of their findings and research into a book. Abby insisted that they could sell it and that one day other scientists would read it and believe it. Even Erin’s parents would have to admit that they were wrong all those years. It made the brunette tingle with anticipation. All those years of bullying had been leading up to the moment when a high profile scientist would give her research some merit and finally believe what she had been saying for so long.

In their last weeks of college, Abby spoke to one of her professors about one of their theories whilst Erin stood behind her. The professor immediately wrinkled his nose and looked between the two of them with disdain. 

“For two of this college’s most intelligent students, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. No self-respecting scientist believes in the paranormal. If you want my advice, you should pack this in and forget all about it. I personally don’t want to hear about any of it.”

Erin felt a familiar tug in the chest and raced back to her room, pulling Abby with her. “We can’t publish that book,” she told her friend, gripping her wrist so hard that her knuckles turned white.

“Erin, forget him,” Abby said. “And please, let go of my wrist. I think my hand’s about to fall off. Which would be bad for you, because we all know I have a steadier hand and you probably wouldn’t be able to survive without me. You burned pasta the other day.” She took a breath when Erin released her and sat down. “Who cares what that guy thinks. None of them are willing to even look at our stuff, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have merit. Somewhere out there is someone who will believe us, but we’re not going to reach them unless we publish this.”

“I’m sorry, Abby. I can’t have anything to do with this. Not if I want a career.”

Erin walked out that day and never looked back, as much as she wanted to. Leaving Abby and their book was the single most difficult thing she had ever done, but she couldn’t have people thinking she was crazy. Erin knew that she shouldn’t care so much about what others thought of her, but it was something she couldn’t help. There was no off switch for it, so she just had to make the most of what she had and use her PhD in a more conventional way. Which she could do. Erin had forced herself to be conventional her whole life.

\- - -

Erin left college, got herself a job at Colombia University and spent years working herself silly to be considered for tenure before she saw Abby again. When Ed Mulgrave turned up with the book that she had tried hard to forget in his hands, she realised that she would have to face Abby and ask her why on Earth she had decided to publish the book without her agreement. Which she wouldn’t have actually agreed to, but Abby could have at least removed her name. The last thing she needed was for an old hobby to ruin the career she had managed to build for herself.

So Erin jumped in a cab and made her way to where Abby was working. It was a dirty place, hardly the sort of place Erin could envision providing a good standard of education but hey, who was she to judge? The door to Abby’s lab had another name on it (some Dr. Jillian Holtzmann) but Erin didn’t pay much notice to it. Until she had walked in and been confronted by the woman.

Jillian Holtzmann was not what Erin was expecting. Nothing about her said ‘scientist’ (well, she was unlike any scientist that Erin had ever met anyway). In fact, she looked more like the person her parents would have steered her well clear of. Her hair was in a style that she had never seen before and she was dressed in a strange manner, although she somehow seemed to pull it off. Her low “come here often?” had caused Erin’s breath to catch in an unusual way and it didn’t get much better as Holtzmann continued to speak to her. Erin really wasn’t even sure how to address the other woman, but was saved from having to when Abby swept out from behind a curtain, wearing some ridiculous headpiece that Erin had no clue was for.

Abigail Yates hadn’t changed a bit. Really, Erin was pleased to see that her old friend had managed to continue doing what she loved. Part of her just wished that she could have been there to do it all with her. But she had given up on that when she left Abby and their book and everything they had worked on in order to chase a more ‘realistic’ dream. The worst thing about seeing her again was that she had never expected to feel so much like an outsider around Abby. But there she stood, watching as Abby and Holtzmann did some form of elaborate handshake and feeling like she shouldn’t be there at all. These were not her friends, and this sure as hell wasn’t her research. It was Abby’s research and Holtzmann’s inventions and Erin was more than happy to take them both to Aldridge Mansion in return for Abby (possibly) removing the book from sale.

Erin didn’t expect to choke a little bit when she saw that Holtzmann was wearing a crop top beneath her dungarees.

\- - - 

Labels made Erin feel safe. She wasn’t the type to breeze through life (as much as she wished she was) and by labelling herself, there was less opportunity to get stuck in a confusing situation where she wasn’t sure where she fit. But her sexuality was something that she had never openly labelled. She knew that she passed as heterosexual and had never given anyone cause to think otherwise, although in her own mind she labelled herself as bisexual. 

It wasn’t something she had ever discussed with anyone, although Abby had always been aware of the fact that she wasn’t straight. Her casual and short-lived relationships throughout college had been with both men and women, and Abby hadn’t been phased at all. But Erin had never had feelings for a friend. And after a little while of working alongside Holtzmann, Erin found herself in that exact situation. Jillian Holtzmann was everything that Erin admired and feared. She was confident and unwavering in her uniqueness; equally as wacky as she was intelligent, casting little to no though about what others thought of her. It was refreshing, and Erin was pretty sure that she could write another book just on Holtz. Her mannerisms, the way she spoke and the evident passion she had for her work.

She had first realised it when the engineer had treated her to an impromptu dance performance, lip syncing to DeBarge as she shimmied around the small office. Yes, she had set a small fire and Erin had felt her heart jump into her throat (nobody really knew what sort of stuff Holtz could have lying around), but her worry had been short lived. Holtz had sorted it and Erin had been left well and truly speechless and with an awful lot of thinking to do. Because Holtz was just a flirtatious person. There could be no feelings involved, at least not towards her. Erin was absolutely certain that someone like Holtzmann could never like someone like herself. 

Kevin’s arrival definitely gave her a good distraction. The man was very nice to look at, but maybe she was exaggerating her attraction to him a little bit in a poor attempt to force away the crush she had on Holtz. Abby had definitely noticed, and Erin found herself cornered by her friend early one morning before Patty and Kevin had arrived and whilst Holtz was out looking for scrap metal to use.

“Erin, what is all this with Kevin?” Abby asked, tilting her head and frowning.

Erin pretended to be surprised and widened her eyes. “What? You’ve seen him. He’s . . . nice to look at. I like him.”

Abby shook her head. “You don’t like him,” she stated, fixing Erin with her best ‘don’t even try lying to me’ face. “You know it and I know it. I just don’t know why you’re playing it up so much. It’s not like you.”

“Look Abby, I’m just having a bit of fun with him. He’s nice, he’s good-looking and it’s not like anything’s going to happen. Don’t worry.” At that, Erin stood up and walked out of the door, asking Abby if she wanted anything from the coffee shop as she left.

“No thanks,” the woman called out as she left. “And I’m watching you, Gilbert.”

\- - - 

And watch her she did. Erin felt Abby’s eyes on her much more than usual, and the other Ghostbuster was a pretty perceptive and observational person. They continued as they had been, although the business with Rowan provided a welcome distraction from Erin’s attraction to Holtzmann. Things had really only become worse, with Holtz’ constant flirting reducing her to a blushing, stuttering mess and making her feel like her legs were turning to jelly. 

Erin had started talking to Holtz more and more, with the two of them usually being the first ones into the office and the last ones to leave. Holtz had a habit of working through the night and Erin tried her hardest to get her to sleep, but would always bring an extra coffee in the morning just in case. The best parts of her day became the mornings and the evenings when it was just the two of them. Erin had always felt so much expectation around other people, whether it be expectation to speak, or to make jokes or to spout something scientific in the hopes of impressing someone. With Holtz though, Erin could just be. Their silence was comfortable, punctuated by the knocking of Holtz as she worked or the scribble of a pen as Erin wrote down various equations and notes. 

They would talk as well. About ghosts and work at first, and then gradually they started to speak about other things; snippets of their pasts (although neither divulged very much), random theories they both had about things other than ghosts, and all sorts of other subjects. Erin learned that Holtz’ favourite colour changed on a weekly basis (it was teal at the moment) and that Holtz naturally had quite a high body temperature (that she found out on a particularly cold morning when Erin was shivering at the desk and Holtz had thrown her MIT jumper over to her, ignoring Erin’s protests and informing her that she just didn’t get cold very easily). None of them mentioned it when Erin didn’t return it and she was sure that Holtz had noticed her wearing it on days when she felt particularly anxious or upset about something. It smelled faintly of oil and something that Erin didn’t recognise but was distinctly Holtz, which did a good job of making her feel comfortable and just a little bit better. She put that down to the fact that it was warm though, even if it was the tiniest bit too small for her.

\- - -

Once they moved into the firehouse, Erin found herself spending even more time around the engineer. Holtz had taken the second floor for herself (Patty’s insistent protests had fallen on deaf ears and everyone liked the idea of Holtz having her own space to work on her inventions, which had grown steadily more dangerous) and the third floor consisted of bedrooms for the four of them, although Holtz rarely used hers, opting instead for the pile of blankets in the corner of her lab. Originally Erin, Abby and Patty all worked downstairs, but Erin had slowly moved up to the second floor with Holtz, waking one morning to find a desk and a whiteboard at one end of the lab. Throughout an average day she would observe at least one small fire and be dragged up for at least three dances. When Holtz was working particularly hard, she would tend to counter it by dancing a bit more and with more zest as well. Which happened one day when she couldn’t get something to work. She switched on Come On Eileen and spun over to Erin, holding her hands out. 

“Come on sweet cheeks,” she called, tilting her head and shooting Erin a wink. “Dance with me.”

“I thought you were trying to work something out,” Erin countered, although she still took Holtzmann’s hand and allowed herself to be pulled up.

Holtz grinned. “Yeah, but I’m not gonna work it out by sitting there pulling my hair out, am I? Sometimes you’ve just got to get out of the mind space. You should try it sometime. All my best ideas come to me when I’m not focusing too hard.”

Erin nodded, unable to really argue with what Holtz said. She spun around with the other woman, laughing when Holtz changed the words and began singing “come on Erin” in her face and closing her eyes when Holtz’ breath mixed with her own. The song came to an end and Holtz left the room in search of some Pringles, Erin still mildly shocked and waiting for her limbs to start working again.

“You have got to stop making heart eyes at her and just do something, Erin.”

Erin jumped and whipped around to find Patty staring at her with an amused smirk on her face. “What do you mean?” she questioned, shrugging her shoulders and trying to face an expression of nonchalance. “I don’t make heart eyes at Holtz . . . I don’t make heart anything at Holtz. I admire her, but I don’t like her. Not in that way. We’re . . . friends. Buddies. Paaaals.” Erin shot Patty finger guns and grimaced visibly, fully aware that she wasn’t convincing whatsoever. 

Patty shook her head and let out a bark of laughter. “I swear, I feel like I’m watching some panda documentary and the two of you are both too damn shy to do anything. Please, just tell her you like her. Abby and I both know it, and I’m pretty sure Holtzy feels the same way.”

“She doesn’t,” Erin replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “She flirts with everybody; you know that.”

“Nuh uh, Abby told me she never flirts with anyone for more than a couple of days at the most. Not unless she’s really interested. And even then, Abby says there hasn’t been anyone she’s been interested in for as long as you. Plus, every time we go to get snacks or something, she doesn’t stop talking about you. Like, at all. It’s annoying and she’s not going to say anything because she thinks you’re too intelligent or too good for her or something. So it’s down to your skinny ass to sort this out.”

Patty hugged her and left then, leaving Erin to go to her room and think about the best way to go about asking out Jillian Holtzmann.

\- - -

It didn’t go the way she expected. It started with her innocently asking about Holtzmann’s necklace and ended with the two of them huddled together atop Holtz’ blanket pile, the blonde still shaking after telling Erin about her sister and how important she was to Holtz. And Erin stayed awake long after Holtz had fallen asleep, tracing circles against her back and listening to the way Holtz would sigh quietly every now and then. 

They woke in the morning and Erin kissed her then, feeling like finally she had found a place to be accepted and maybe even loved.The two of them stayed in bed for most of the morning, both strangely content to leave their work for a little while. Abby had poked her head in to check that Holtz was alive and had quickly backed out when she saw Erin curled up beside her, a sly grin on her face. They heard her scream for Patty as soon as she left the room, but they weren’t interrupted again.

“So,” Holtz said, lying with her head on Erin’s lap. “You had a crush on me, huh? That’s kind of embarrassing, Gilbert.” She waggled her eyebrows and linked their hands, grinning up at Erin.

Erin laughed. “Jillian, we’re pretty much together. Don’t you think it would be kind of awkward if I didn’t?”

“Pretty much?” Holtz pouted and feigned a sniffle. “And here I was thinking I had swept you off your feet with my big emotional reveal and I could call you my girlfriend.”

“Hmm, that’s a good point. Maybe you should ask me properly though. Just for good measure.”

Holtz grinned and cleared her throat. “Okay. Erin. Sweet, beautiful Erin. I’ve kind of been in heart eyes with you for an embarrassing length of time and I would just love it if you would be my girlfriend.”

Erin leaned down and pressed a kiss to Holtz’ forehead. “Well, when you put it like that how could I refuse?”

**Author's Note:**

> Again, apologies for any mistakes (my work is all unbeta'd) and hopefully I did okay with their voices and everything again. I don't think this had as much fluff as I would have liked, but I want to work on a multi-chap fic if people would be interested in that. Let me know what you guys think and come shout at me on tumblr about these nerds. I might start taking prompts if people would be interested :)


End file.
